This Was Really Scary...

When I was 18, we ran into this guy who agreed to buy us beer. Actually, we waited in Chubb’s parking lot looking for the right guy to ask to buy us beer. When he came out with our beer, he was looking over his shoulder at the liquor store that he just left and said “Follow us in your car, and I will give you the beer,” We thought that he was worried about getting in trouble for buying beer for minors. I said okay, and started my car. My friend, who shall remain nameless, said “Don’t let him lose us.” We drove to the outskirts of town and stopped behind the guy and his wife’s truck, in what turned out to be their driveway. He motioned us inside and we hopped out, a little wary. Inside he opened each of us one of our beers and put the rest in the fridge. The 4 of us drank beer and exchanged names, and then he told us about the partially burned up car out back. He said it was a 67 Chevelle that he “happened upon” and needed to get rid of it temporarily. He also told us that if we took it, he would pay us $500 each to hide it for a year. Now, at the time I was making $7.00 an hour, and at that time my friend had a place to hide such a car. So, we agreed to hide it for 12 months - after he showed us the title, pictures of himself and his wife with the car (not burned), and gave us a note claiming that the car was his, and that we were storing it for him. He would not tell us why he wanted rid of the car for a while, only stating that it was a personal matter. We came back the next day, met him out back and started up the car. Just the left side had burned, but the car smelled like it had burned for a straight year. When we got the car (it was fast, a 396 4 speed!) we gave the car a once over and covered it up with a tarp. So far, so good, right? Wrong. The next day, while I was looking in the glove compartment, two guys jumped out from the left side of the garage, they were wearing satin shirts and really tight black leather pants, doing a little side step jig to some real snappy music that came out of no where. 4 or 5 girls slid over the hood of the car (right on cue) and all of them started singing “They don’t know what is in the trunk, (clap, clap) they just think the car is junk (clap, clap) what they don’t know is going to get them in trooooouuuuble!” Then the lights went down and blue and yellow lights came up. There was a disco ball, too. Then they all danced in unison while a spotlight shown on one of the women while she sang an incredible bluesy jingle about greed and youth, despite the big band style that drove the song, God as my witness, somehow it just fit! Then my friend and the husband-wife team slid through the open garage door on their knees and belted out a neat little barbershop-style rockabilly treat that really got me tapping my toes. After that I joined in with the whole “…get them in troooooouuuuble!” thing, and we ended it all in a spectacular ensemble of stomp-style, knee-hitting, stomping, and clapping crescendo.

What you have just read is an example of why I can’t sit through a musical.